Paul Willis was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor of the silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 era who is possibly best recalled as a child actor

Child actor

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

 in the 1910s.

Born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, Willis made his screen debut for Vitagraph studios at the age of twelve in the title role of the 1913 drama-short Little Kaintuck. He would go on to play a variety of juvenile roles, often opposite child actress Mildred Harris

Mildred Harris

Mildred Harris was an American film actress. Harris began her career in the film industry as a popular child actress at age eleven. At the age of fifteen, she was cast as a harem girl in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance . She appeared as a leading lady through the 1920s but her career slowed with...

. One notable film starring Willis was the 1914 Edward Dillon-directed comedy-short Bill Goes in Business for Himself which also starred actor and future successful film director Tod Browning

Tod Browning

Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...

. In 1917 Willis appeared opposite the very popular onscreen duo Harold Lockwood

Harold Lockwood

Harold A. Lockwood was an American silent film actor and one of the most popular matinee idols of the early film period during the 1910s.-Career:...

 and May Allison

May Allison

May Allison was an American stage and film actress whose greatest success was achieved in the early part of the 20th century in the medium of silent film.-Life and career:...

 in the romantic drama The Promise.

Through the 1910s and into the 1920s, Paul Willis would appear opposite such actors as Carmel Myers

Carmel Myers

Carmel Myers was an American actress who worked chiefly in silent movies.Myers was born in San Francisco, the daughter of an Australian rabbi and Austrian Jewish mother. Her father became well-connected with California's emerging film industry, and introduced her to film pioneer D. W. Griffith,...

, Lester Cuneo

Lester Cuneo

Lester H. Cuneo was an American stage and silent film actor. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he began acting in live theatre while still in his teens.-Career:...

, Broncho Billy Anderson

Broncho Billy Anderson

Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson was an American actor, writer, film director, and film producer, who is best known as the first star of the Western film genre.-Early life:...

 and Mae Marsh

Mae Marsh

Mae Marsh was an American film actress with a career spanning over 50 years.-Early life:...

.

Willis is possibly best recalled for his portrayal of Dickon Sowerby in the 1919 Gustav von Seyffertitz

Gustav von Seyffertitz

Gustav von Seyffertitz was a German film actor and director. He appeared in 118 films between 1917 and 1939.He was born in Haimhausen, Bavaria and died in Los Angeles, California, aged 81.-Selected filmography:...

-directed film adaptaion of the Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden , A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.Born Frances Eliza Hodgson, she lived in Cheetham Hill, Manchester...

 novel The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...

for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, in which he appeared opposite actors Lila Lee

Lila Lee

Lila Lee was a prominent screen actress of the early silent film era.-Early life:Lila Lee was born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel in Union Hill, New Jersey into a middle-class family of German immigrants who relocated to New York City when Lila was quite young...

, Richard Rosson

Richard Rosson (filmmaker)

Richard Rosson was an American film director and actor. As an actor, he was known for the nearly 100 films he was in during the silent era...

 and Spottiswoode Aitken

Spottiswoode Aitken

Frank Spottiswoode Aitken was a Scottish- American actor of the silent era.Aitken was one of the first actors to settle in Los Angeles when the film industry was still at its strongest in New York...

. The film is now considered lost.

Willis retired from acting at age 22. His final film appearance was in the 1923 Tom Forman

Tom Forman

Tom Forman was a motion picture actor, writer, and producer of the early 1920s.- Life and career :Texas-born Forman made his first film for Jesse L. Lasky's production company in 1914. With the exception of service at the front during World War I, he had a successful career as both an actor and...

-directed drama Money! Money! Money!, opposite Katherine MacDonald

Katherine MacDonald

Katherine Agnew MacDonald was an American actress and film producer. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.- Career :...

 and Carl Stockdale

Carl Stockdale

Carl Stockdale also known as Carlton Stockdale was one of the longest-working Hollywood veteran actors, with a career dating from the early 1910s. He also made the difficult transition from silent films, to talkies....

.

Willis died at the age of 59 in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in 1960.

Filmography

• Money! Money! Money! (1923)
• Thunderclap (1921)
• Nobody's Kid (1921)
• The Cry of the Weak (1919)
• The Son-of-a-Gun
  The Son-of-a-Gun
  The Son-of-a-Gun is a 1919 American film directed by Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson.- Cast :*Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson as Bill*Joy Lewis as May Brown*Fred Church as Buck Saunders*Frank Whitson as Double Deck Harry...
  
  (1919)
• The Secret Garden (1919)
• Shootin' Mad (1918)
• The Trouble Buster (1917)
• The Haunted Pajamas (1917)
• The Promise (1917)
• The Fall of a Nation
  The Fall of a Nation
  The Fall of a Nation was a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Thomas Dixon, Jr. It is a sequel to the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith, which Dixon, Jr. co-wrote, in attempt in cash in on the success of the controversial first film. The Fall of a Nation is...
  
  (1916)
• Could a Man Do More? (1915)
• The Indian Trapper's Vindication (1915)
• The Little Lumberjack (1915)
• The Old Batch (1915)
• A Rightful Theft (1915)
• The Little Soldier Man (1915)
• A Man for All That (1915)
• The Little Matchmaker (1915)
• Bill Goes in Business for Himself (1914)
• The Milkfed Boy (1914)
• The Poor Folks' Boy (1914)
• Johanna, the Barbarian (1914)
• The Brute (1914)
• Little Kaintuck (1913)

External links